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PubUcation CO. 54 



WAR 
AND FAMILY SOLIDARITY 



BY 

MARY E. RICHMOND 

DIRECTOR CHARITY ORGANIZATION DEPARTMENT 
RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION 




ADDRESS BEFORE THE 

DIVISION ON THE FAMILY OF THE 

NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF SOCIAL WORK, 

MAY 21, 1918 



Charity Organization Department of the 

Russell Sage Foundation 

130 East Twenty-second Street 

New York City 

1918 



Price, S Cents 




x 



WAR 
AND FAMILY SOLIDARITY 



BY 

MARY E. RICHMOND 

DIRECTOR CHARITY ORGANIZATION DEPARTMENT 
RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION 




ADDRESS BEFORE THE 

DIVISION ON THE FAMILY OF THE 

NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF SOCIAL WORK, 

MAY 21, 1918 



Charity Organization Department of the 

Russell Sage Foundation 

130 East Twenty-second Street 

New York City 

1918 



^6 



Copyright, 191 8, by the 
National Conference of Social Work 



Gift 
Institution 
..uy 6 l9tS 



WAR AND FAMILY SOLIDARITY 

The topic assigned to me has such wide significance and so 
many aspects that it is only fair to explain at the very outset 
within what narrow limits my own share in this discussion will 
have to be confined. We social workers could learn from His- 
tory the fateful relations of war to family life if only we were 
wise enough to adapt her lessons to a world situation which is 
altogether unprecedented. Statistics could furnish us with valid 
social data, too, if we were able to thread our way with safety 
through the maze of variables in which any comparison of sta- 
tistical data immediately involves the student. 

I found myself in such a maze recently over the simple discov- 
ery that marriages decreased 29 per cent in New York City during 
the first year of the Civil War — in 1861, that is, as compared 
with i860 — and that they increased 8 per cent in the same city 
during 19 17 as compared with 19 16. How is this marked differ- 
ence to be accounted for? Obviously here is food for thought, 
but the more I look at these figures the less sure I am of their 
meaning. War was declared in April in both years, but here the 
resemblance ceases. We do happen to know that nothing so 
promptly depresses the marriage rate as an industrial crisis. 
There was a panic in 1857 and another smaller one in 1915. 
Marriages are postponed at such times, so that when prosperity 
returns there is a marked advance in the marriage rate. The 
drop in the hard times of 19 15 was slight, however, — less than 
4 per cent — and many other factors may have to be reckoned 
with in trying to account for the rise of 1916 over 1915 and of 
1917 over both, especially when we realize that the vital sta- 
tistics of 1861 show a sharper curve in the opposite direction. 
As between the two periods, a few of the factors that must be 
taken into account, over and above the prosperity one, are (i) 
the draft of 19 17 (there was no draft in the first year of the Civil 
War), (2) the promise by our government of family allowances 

3 



(liberal allowances too, when we compare them with Civil War 
policies), and (3) the effect of the present European conflict upon 
migration to this country. Just how far each of these enters in 
it is too early to say, and it is too early to extend this compari- 
son of vital statistics in the two periods to the country as a whole, 
for in many states the statistics for 19 17 are not yet available. 
The comparison would have to be limited to certain states in 
any case, for the reason that many states had no trustworthy 
vital statistics in the 6o's. 

I mention this one instance to show how futile it would be at 
this stage of the war to attempt either summary or forecast. 
The time for comprehensive summaries is not yet. Of prophecies 
concerning what war will do to the family we already have a large 
crop, but then the besetting sin of prophets is to be sure that the 
thing which they wish to see happen is going to happen. 

Why not wait, therefore, and discuss subjects that we know 
more about? The reason that we do not is obvious enough. 
Crude as our thinking has to be, we consider war in its relation 
to family life without delay because we are deeply concerned at 
the present moment with the welfare of families in which war 
has wrought changes. I refer, of course, to the families of our 
men now in service in camp, in the danger zone, and at the front. 

We are in no position to dogmatize, but some sort of a day- 
to-day working theory we have to have, because we are acting 
daily. There is more than a possibility that this war will in- 
fluence family life in America profoundly, and we are anxious 
that all our acts down to the very smallest of them may weigh 
on the side of family welfare. Indeed, as I interpret the spirit 
of Red Cross Home Service, in which so many of you are inter- 
ested, it implies, does it not, a desire — not to explain when too 
late, but to shape and control, while yet there is time, the forces 
of this fateful hour in their relation to the American home. 

What is happening, and how may we observe and report in 
order that we may plan and serve? In the earlier experimental 
stages of the attack upon any new human problem, I know no 
better witnesses than the social case workers. They have the 
interest that must precede observation, they have the habit of 
observing, and they are by no means credulous. Accordingly, 
following a plan that I have tried before and never without 
grateful appreciation of the patience of my correspondents, I 

4 



have sought, in preparation for my share in this meeting, the 
aid of a number of experienced social workers, selecting by pref- 
erence those now actively engaged in the work of the Home 
Service Sections of the Red Cross. Their evidence, together 
with that of a few Canadian workers, must be violently fore- 
shortened in this brief presentation, but I shall try to sum it up 
under the six heads of (i) the unstable husband and father, (2) 
the unstable wife and mother, (3) the recently married, (4) the 
unmarried soldier or sailor, (5) the stable and responsible head 
of a family, (6) what we can do about it. 

I am deliberately avoiding the observations and suggestions 
already recorded in Home Service publications, and I warn you 
that you will find this attempt to supplement them all too frag- 
mentary. We have only a brief experience to record, but even 
so I must try to avoid speculation and prophecy by keeping 
within that experience. 

(i) The Unstable Husband and Father 
Upon this first sub-topic, the conclusions of my correspondents 
in the United States and of those in Canada do not agree. Our 
own social workers are almost unanimous in the opinion that war 
is doing the unstable head of a family who has enlisted nothing 
but good. Take, in illustration, such instances as these, of which 
a good many more have been reported to me: 

a. Wife and two children practically deserted two years before 
the husband joined the arrrty. Now his attitude is entirely 
changed. He writes regularly, feels financially responsible for 
their care, is making plans for his family's future welfare, and 
seems to have an entirely new conception of the meaning and 
value of a home. 

b. A case of estrangement that had gone so far as to lead to 
a decree of divorce on the ground of abuse and non-support. 
The soldier now takes a new interest in his three children; the 
divorced wife evinces marked pride in her former husband. 

It should be added, however, that a number of the American 
reports received dwell upon the improved conditions now assured 
to families formerly neglected by the head of the house, but that 
these reports fail to mention any corresponding improvement in 
the absent man's attitude toward his home. My Canadian in- 
formants are of the opinion that the unsatisfactory family man 

5 



will, after the war is over, be more unsatisfactory than ever, and 
their experience of war conditions and influences covers a longer 
period than ours. Reasons for our hopeful attitude toward this 
group of what we used to call "married vagabonds" are found 
in the disciplined and wholesome life of camp, which has so 
obviously given many men a new self-control and a new physical 
vigor; the subtler influences of group psychology have also 
played their part, for the prevailing sentiment of an American 
regiment, whether in training or in active service, is overwhelm- 
ingly a home sentiment. Added to this is the softened feeling 
of home folks for men who have unexpectedly risen to the occasion. 
On the other hand, these strengthening influences are going to be 
offset, probably, by the nerve-racking effects of life under fire 
and by the effects of prolonged absence. In this latter regard 
our men are at a great disadvantage, as compared with those of 
any of our allies except the colonials; they will be unable to see 
their families every few months when "on leave." 

But, either way, should not Home Service take note of the 
changed conditions in this particular group of families and, in 
so far as the change is at all favorable — either for the wife and 
children, the absent man, or for all of them — accept the chal- 
lenge and make advantageous use of each new opportunity? 
Our experience is brief, but not so brief but that we have found 
the new conditions, to an extent at least, controllable. Then 
why not strive to control them, why not give each handicapped 
family a new chance of health, of self-discipline, of self-expression, 
while the army or the navy is giving the absent head of the 
house his new chance too? 

(2) The Unstable Wife and Mother 
We all know, of course, that the danger of family disintegra- 
tion is much greater when the mother, rather than the father, 
is the weak member. Where both have shown marked weak- 
nesses there is always a chance that the wife will be able to do 
better away from her husband than with him. There are in- 
stances now of women whose husbands are away, who are better 
able to keep sober and better able to do their duty by their 
children than was the case before the war. My informants 
report, however, a number of families in which the direct opposite 
has been true — in which the wife and mother was able to carry 

6 



her responsibilities with credit when her husband was at home, 
but went to pieces morally with great suddenness after his de- 
parture. These sudden breakdowns do not necessarily imply 
any deep-seated abnormality. People equal to a certain degree 
of strain and worry often fail under a heavier demand; even 
among those of us who pass for normal there are marked differ- 
ences in this capacity to endure strain. One interesting account 
comes from Canada of a woman who temporarily went under, 
abandoning her children and seeking low companions, but who 
has entirely recovered her sense of moral values and interest in 
her family. Her recovery was aided by a skillful rallying of 
better influences and associations. We have to remember, there- 
fore, that these failures are not all of them irretrievable, though 
it is necessary, of course, to discover to what extent actual 
mental defect enters into the individual situation. 

(3) The Recently Married 
A trainer of Home Service volunteers reminds me that not 
all the hasty and ill-advised marriages of war time can be charged 
to the war. A good proportion of the contracting parties would 
have been married "in haste" in any case. The points of view 
of young wives in some of the Home Service families brought to 
my attention lead me to wonder whether the danger of absence 
is not greater for both husband and wife in the first year of mar- 
riage than at almost any other time. The new home has no well 
established habits and traditions. If the woman left behind 
faces the birth of her first child away from her own people, she 
may easily become morbid and lose her courage. In fact, in the 
case of one young wife known to me, who was not away from 
her people at all but living with her mother, it soon became evi- 
dent that, with the best intentions in the world, these two women 
were putting their heads together and blaming every small in- 
convenience upon the absent husband. This slant of theirs 
reached such a pitch that, when the baby came, neither one 
wanted to let the father know of its arrival. Nothing in his 
past or present conduct seemed to justify their attitude. In all 
probability, if the young couple had spent their first year of mar- 
ried life in their own home and the wife's nervous depression 
could have been eased by the knowledge that her husband was 
there and was sympathetically sharing her troubles, no such 

7 



sense of estrangement could have come to her. The Home Ser- 
vice worker of experience may well help to interpret life to a 
young thing who insists upon looking upon the dark side before 
her baby comes; taking to some extent, in this service, the place 
of the wise woman relative who is absent, and counteracting, it 
may be, the influence of the unwise one who is present. 

(4) The Unmarried Soldier or Sailor 
History is being made so rapidly in these days that, before 
the proceedings of this meeting are printed, my first comment 
under this fourth head may be quite beside the mark, but I 
cannot help expressing the hope that the day may be hastened 
when all of our men will be fighting under their own American 
commands. I urge this, of course, not for military reasons, about 
which I know nothing, but for social reasons. I am entirely 
willing to believe that the brave men in the British and French 
armies are "just as good" as our own boys, but each nation 
has a different background, each needs a different discipline when 
it comes to such matters as recreation, social hygiene, the use of 
alcoholic drinks, and so on. The provisions made with loving 
care by the American people for the health and recreation of our 
soldiers are necessarily better adapted to American needs than 
any other provision, however good, could be. 

Many of our unmarried men at the front look forward def- 
initely to marriage, of course, but the alternation in army life 
of the two extremes of months of dull routine followed by weeks 
of feverish excitement does not tend to fit men for a quiet life 
in one place. We have to recognize that a long war will mean 
not only later marriages but, with many men, an acquired taste 
for adventure and change which may turn them from home life 
altogether. A Canadian woman writes, "My brother has spent 
nearly three years in France. Judging from his restlessness while 
on leave last winter, I should think any regular, humdrum life 
impossible for him for a while. He has changed from a quiet 
boy with considerable power of concentration to one who wished 
to be 'on the go' every minute, jumping from one thing to 
another continually. I have observed the same change in many 
of my friends. Some of this will wear off, of course, but it can- 
' not fail to influence their relations to family life." 

Evidence comes from every quarter that the mothers are won- 



derful. As one Home Service leader puts It, "In the past a 
mother's affection for the boy just grown up has often been 
overshadowed by apprehension, but now all this is changed to 
affection plus a burning pride." So deep is this affection that 
we often find it difficult now to get any clear picture of the back- 
ground of the boy who has given trouble in the past. According 
to his mother, at least, he has always been good. Then, too, 
there is the compensation that the boys often become more ex- 
pressive. One mother said to a visitor, "I know my boy so 
much better now. When he was at home he was one of the quiet 
kind whose nose was always in a book, but now he writes to me 
every day and he tells me everything." 

(5) The Stable and Responsible Head of a Family 
Social workers engaged in war work are beginning to realize, 
as never before, the importance of fathers. Edward S. Martin 
declares that the boys who lacked a father's care during the Civil 
War and became ne'er-do-wells later on (as many of them did) 
were as much sacrificed to their country as though they had been 
killed in battle. We must ask ourselves what were the elements 
that the absent father especially supplied in the home life, and 
strive to see that, to some extent at least, these elements are 
made good. 

We are all familiar with the type of efificient person who makes 
everyone round about him inefficient. It often happens that 
when the responsible head of a family goes his family have been 
so dependent upon him as scarcely to know where to turn. 
There is opportunity here not merely for service, but for stimu- 
lation of the power of self-help. 

(6) What We Can Do Now 
I realize that each one of these topics bristles with aspects 
upon which I have not even touched. The philosophy of family 
life is not my theme; I have been hurrying on, rather, to the one 
aspect of the subject upon which I shall take time to dwell. 
The outstanding problem of the Home Service worker during the 
strenuous months immediately ahead is the problem of the psy- 
chology of absence under conditions of unusual stress and strain. 
The text books have no division devoted to this subject — it is 
practically an unexplored field. No group in the community 

9 



has ever had such an opportunity to study the effect of absence 
upon social relationships as you are going to have in the fulfill- 
ment of your daily task. By keeping your eyes and your under- 
standing open you can add not only to the world's sum of com- 
fort and right adjustment, but to its sum of knowledge and 
experience also. 

What are a few of the things now practicable that might have 
a wholesome effect upon the mental attitudes of the absent and 
of those who remain behind? I venture to make seven sugges- 
tions, some of which may seem to you trivial, but when we are 
exploring a new road we have to begin where we are. 

a. One of the temptations of Home Service is to become so 
interested in constructive and helpful plans for family better- 
ment that the plans and ideals of the absent head of the family 
may be forgotten. My first suggestion is that we continue to 
consult the absent husband and father whenever this can be done 
without giving him undue worry and anxiety over small nagging 
things from which he can be spared. What are his ideas about 
this cheerful plan which opens a new window of opportunity? 
What modifications would he suggest? Consultation is no new 
idea to the social worker, but its close relation to the sense of 
family responsibility needs to be emphasized anew at a time 
when so many are discovering the possibilities and the satisfac- 
tions of service. 

b. A member of the Sanitary Commission during the Civil 
War declared that the two things that did most to keep the 
soldiers well were music and letters from home. As between the 
family and its absent member everything should be done to 
keep all channels of communication wide open, while making 
that communication as vital as possible. Every Home Service 
visitor should be sure that letters are going regularly and fre- 
quently from the homes she visits, and should strive in tactful 
ways to be sure that these letters are stimulating rather than 
depressing. Years ago we learned the lesson in social work that 
the man sent to the tuberculosis sanatorium often left at the 
wrong time and came back home no better in health, not because 
he was indifferent to the measures taken for his cure but because 
he was intolerably homesick and hungry for home news. In 
other words, the social worker had neglected, after securing the 
right medical care, to take the additional step of urging the home 
folks to keep him thoroughly informed of home news and as 
cheerful as possible about conditions there. 

Then, as now, illiteracy was often a bar. A friend tells me 
of one Home Service family in which a mother had two sons at 
the front. She reported to the visitor that she heard regularly 

10 



from the older one of the two, but not from the younger. Tom 
and she had "had words" just before he left home. She was 
sorry now that they had parted in anger, but the visitor failed 
to find out in this interview whether the mother had ever written 
and said that she was sorry. When the Home Service supervisor 
suggested that this be done, the fact came out that the mother 
could not write. Here, and in many similar situations, the Home 
Service worker finds a definite opportunity for usefulness. 

As regards the tone of letters, a Home Service leader received 
some time ago a letter from an officer in France in which he 
says of his wife's letters, "Clara writes often, and her spirit 
reaches even over here." In telling this incident my informant 
added, " I was careful to ask Clara the next time I saw her about 
her letters. She explained that she was at great pains to keep 
all fretfulness out of them, but was equally careful to tell just 
what was happening." A mother, whose immediate family con- 
sists of two sons who are now at the front, thought seriously of 
closing her comfortable home in order to devote an even larger 
share of her time to war service. The boys protested, however, 
writing from France, "Whatever you do, Mother, be sure to 
keep the home together. It steadies us to know that it is there 
and going on as usual. Be sure to tell us about the dogs and 
don't forget to let us know when the flowers come up in the 
garden." Here is surely a strong argument for keeping families 
together and the home life as near to its normal standard as 
possible. In a rocking world the home becomes the one fixed 
center of the soldier's hopes and memories. The homeliest 
things — the dogs, the flowers, the little daily happenings — are 
the best things to write about. Unimportant in themselves, 
they assume vast importance as symbols of the unexpressed and 
inexpressible. 

c. The exigencies of ocean travel under present conditions 
have barred out parcels from home. As conditions change for the 
better, this embargo will be lifted, let us hope, for nothing carries 
more definitely the genuine home flavor than a parcel wrapped 
at home (however badly wrapped), planned at home, and packed 
with loving care and thought. Then too we may hope that local 
newspapers will go freely to the man who has not ceased to be 
a citizen and an active participant, in thought at least, in the 
affairs of his home community. 

d. One colleague of mine suggests that Home Service visitors 
"work the camera for all it is worth." Here is a powerful aid in 
making absent ones seem present. It has been suggested that 
not only is it well to take frequent snapshots of all the members 
of the family in their everyday occupations and surroundings, 
but that each photograph be carefully labeled and dated on the 
back. 

e. We are arrived at a time in the world's history when much 

11 



should be made of festivals. The nation is turning the great 
national holidays to account as an eflfective way of giving ex- 
pression and point to public feeling. Similarly, the home fes- 
tivals and anniversaries, such as birthdays, wedding days, etc., 
should be emphasized more than ever, should be prepared for 
in advance, and celebrated at home and in the trenches sim- 
ultaneously. 

f. The development of new interests in common has been 
definitely aided by the organization of clubs of wives and mothers 
planned on a democratic basis. Exchange of the news from the 
front which comes through letters helps unquestionably to stimu- 
late correspondence, and the organization of classes in war 
geography, in current European history, or in international 
politics multiplies points of contact and increases continuity of 
interest as between the absent and the wives and young people 
at home. Unorganized and empty leisure is one of the greatest 
dangers which assail the stay-at-homes among rich and poor 
alike. There should be no such thing as empty leisure in these 
strenuous times. 

g. Proof is not lacking that there is plenty of courage in our 
army and navy. As the months of war ahead of us measure a 
year, or a series of years, the supreme need for courage is going 
to be in our civilian population. Home Service has found no 
lack of things to do. Its workers are taking up the new tasks 
with energy and enthusiasm. In the sheer joy of the doing they 
must not overlook the need of sharing. In fact, in all their con- 
tacts with the wives and mothers, boys and girls, of our soldiers 
and sailors, let them remember that courage stays and courage 
grows not by shifting family burdens to those outside the family 
circle but by the kind of stimulating help which makes home 
responsibility bearable. In other words, Home Service, like 
every other form of service which is genuine and social, must be 
a partnership affair in which the families visited and aided are 
to be helped to find their part and play it gallantly. Family 
solidarity demands this — that our contacts shall release energy 
in helpful directions and aid each individual who is a member 
of a family to do his part in the kind of self-controlled, self- 
helpful living without which this war cannot be won. 

This ends my list of suggestions for direct action in individual 
families, though it omits many items with which the Home Ser- 
vice Manual and other Home Service publications have already 
made you familiar. 

There is time to no more than mention another part of the 
social program which falls not so much to the Home Service 
Sections as to other agencies in the social field, though the sym- 
pathy and understanding of Home Service are going to be most 

12 



valuable aids to social workers in helping forward these reform 
measures. Just as the physical and mental examiners of the 
army and navy have brought to light certain weaknesses in our 
country's social program on the health side, so the work of draft 
boards, of the War Risk Insurance Bureau, and of the Red Cross 
is bringing to light weak spots in the marital and social rela- 
tions of our people. Not only rational law, but its intelligent 
administration, will help to strengthen family life where it is 
now weakest. This is no plea for a standpat attitude toward the 
institution of the family, but a plea instead for a conservation 
of those human values which the family at its best can best 
maintain. Take, for example, the present laws regulating mar- 
riage in the different states. It is impossible to examine these 
with any care without finding gross inconsistencies — inconsis- 
tencies not only as between different states, but inconsistencies 
in the laws of the same state. This is especially true wherever 
common law marriage is still recognized as valid. We social 
workers are coming to feel that not only should the marriage 
laws of this country be studied and revised — revised conserva- 
tively, that is, in the light of our daily social experience — but 
that the detailed administration of these laws and their adapta- 
tion to varying human situations should be worked out as care- 
fully as we are now working out the administrative details 
which affect industry. The clerk who issues licenses interprets 
the marriage laws. How does he interpret them? How intelli- 
gently are marriage records kept? How large a proportion of 
false statements do they record? 

Then again, we have known theoretically that the marriage of 
the mentally unfit must be prevented, but as a practical measure 
this reform lags far behind because many American communities 
have not a single practitioner competent to detect a mental 
defect or to diagnose it properly. Social workers must create 
the demand which will increase this supply; they must learn 
too to increase the supply of competent practitioners in an allied 
field by creating the demand for prompt diagnosis and treatment 
of all those controllable nervous and physical conditions which 
are most dangerous to family life. This side of the family pro- 
gram would emphasize, therefore, not only socialized laws and 
their socialized enforcement, would try not only to put new vigor 
into the present attempts to control and segregate the mentally 

13 



defective, but would also seek, by studying the human values in 
real families, to bring about those delicate adjustments which 
would tend to conserve the rights of the individual. In the 
supremely important task of family conservation, few processes 
are more important than those which assure such adjustments. 
In all these tasks, social work will need either the active coope- 
ration or the sympathetic backing of Home Service. 

Last of all, if I have seemed at any point to dwell upon the 
dangers and difficulties of family life or to strike a minor note, 
let me assure you in closing that I am well aware also of the 
great outstanding fact that many, many homes in America — 
homes saddened by war and by absence — are sound to the core. 
War is applying to them the test of fire, and they are facing the 
terrible experience of our day in a spirit of faithfulness, of self- 
sacrifice which cannot fail to store up for them in the future a 
faith assured, a treasury of memories destined to enrich family 
life in America for generations to come. Thus we have the old 
paradox of the wheat and the tares growing together — a mingled 
harvest, but a harvest infinitely worth our service and our pains. 

A naval officer wrote recently from the cabin of an American 
destroyer in the war zone to his wife at home, " I must close and 
get a bit of sleep. It seems as if, when it is all over, all the 
heaven I want is to be with you and son again perfectly quiet." 
God grant that that particular heaven — the heaven of a relation 
carried over unbroken and unspoiled — awaits multitudes of our 
brave men now fighting in France and on the seas. 



^ 



14 



